СЕМИО-КОГНИТИВНЫЙ ПОДХОД К МЕТОНИМИИ [ОБЗОР]

Introduction

In the 80s of the twentieth century, J.Lakof and M.Johnson's "Metaphors We Live by" [13] was a revolutionary breakthrough in the science of linguistics. The authors laid the groundwork of speech figures for cognitive linguistics by presenting a new level of discourse in literary criticism and rhetoric. After this, different theories emerged regarding cognitive linguistics, metaphors, mental spaces, and other theories. Even cognitive studies have become a fashion among linguists. In his book (2008) G. Lich wrote that rhetoric and rhetorical figures are not sufficiently explored in reference to language psychology and philosophy. G. Lich attributed this to a lack of linguistic knowledge of the writers: “As a result, the subject of rhetorical figures becomes an unfairly neglected section of literature. Rhetoric has become a topic of discussion because it provides many of our terminologies to talk about these features. [14, P.20].

It seems that during nearly thirty years the researches in this branche of science didn't satisfy the prominent English linguist.  In my opinion, G.Lich felt the need to approach rhetorical figures from different perspectives. I agree with the author that, in fact, over the last decades so many works have been written about metaphor which it seems to me "the leader of rhetorical figures" that all of these often duplicate each other. In the article, I will try to approach the various aspects of metonymy to explain the essence of this trope by referring to scientific sources in different languages.

Discussion

In general, so many various studies have been conducted from antiquity to the present day about rhetorical figures, conceptual metaphor, figures of thought, cognitive metaphor, linguistic metaphor, metaphor in literary texts, metaphor in other discourse types, tropes, etc. that the subject became more complicated. İn this case it was necessary for some researchers to draw credible ideas from the stack of great confusion of hypothesis and to some extent to come to a conclusion.

J. Fahnestok shows that the researcher meets with difficulties in learning traditional knowledge about  figures of speech, especially tropes. The classification of numerous figures continues to create certain problems. J. Fahnestock writes about this: “What joins a metalepsis like "pallid death," using the effect of a cause (death produces pallor) as a quality of that cause, with an aposiopesis like "And when I opened it—," breaking off a predication, perhaps all such devices really have in common is that they can be defined ostensively as the sort of thing traditionally listed as a figure in a rhetoric.”[ 8, P.6]. It is well known that while many linguists differentiate rhetorical figures and metaphors from the tropes, the others do not make any distinction, and some linguistists divide them into smaller details. In classical rhetoric, the study of tropes and figures of ornatus (embellishment) has particular importance. The authors of the rhetoric as Aristotle, Mark Quintilian, Pierre Fontanyer,  César Chesneau Dumarsais and others have analyzed rhetorical figures and tropes from ancient times until the end of the eighteenth century as literary language, good writing rules and critical thinking elements. M. Quintilian talked about fourteen of the tropes and C.Dumarsais about nineteen species of them. [4, P.9]. B.Garavelli distinguishes between tropes and rhetorical figures and shows that the original meaning of the trope is svolta in italian. [9, P.5].

Word figures and figures of thought  in classical rhetorical figures  are characterized as the ornatus - the most perfect part of speech (elocutio). Twenty-nine word figures are classified in different categories in M. Garavelli's Manuale di retorica. Here the 10th figure presents a catalog of thirty-four figures of thought; The list of "speech figures", including metaplasm, grammatical figures, tropes, word figures and figures of thought consists of two hundred and seventy-eight items. [3, P.347-351]. If one wants to accept the five points of Greek-Roman rhetoric, that is, five parts of rhetoric (convention, disposition, elocutio, memoria, axio), then the "composition figures" must be transferred from elocutio to disposio. In fact, these figures serve to construct the speech before its embellishment, that is, they define the boundaries between units at different levels of the text structure and clarify the relationships between them. Some experts use traditional Greek terminology, which uses Latin to describe their "literary methods." [16, s.130].

In classical rhetoric, speech figures are even divided up schemas and tropes. The schemas mainly cover formal patterns, and tropes are lexical or semantic deviations. The Greek word trop, which means "turn around," turns away words or phrases from their usual meaning. T.Todorov (1967) described this as anomaly. Metaphor, metonymy, and oxymoron are common traditional types of tropes, including hyperbole, litotes irony and so on. [2 P.428].  In the seventeenth century, G. Vico divided the tropes into four main types: metaphor, metonymy, synecdoch, and irony [10, P.173-175].

Azerbaijani linguist Dr. Idris Abbasov remarks  that it is difficult to define the exact meaning of the word metaphor (الاستعارة), because it is used  in various meanings in the Arabic language tradition. The term has been used in the sense of “ quotes of author from another author” as well as in the meaning of simile. Therefore, it is impossible to draw a strong barrier between metaphor and simile. Because both terms refer to some degree of comparison and similarity (1, P.149). The author considers metaphor more eloquent than simile because the metaphor creates a new image in imagination (1, P. 322). He cites an example in Arabic about metonymy: الكرم في بيتك [عَلَ kar كَمْ فِي bytik] - 'Generosity is in your house'. Here, “الكرم” refers to the house, not to the person who is directly the resident. This means that the homeowner is generous. This is called in Arabic proportional metonymy (الكناية عن النسبة). Because any quality or feature is indirectly proportional to its owner, not directly  [1, P.132-133].

R. Chakhachiro cites J.Lakoff and M.Johnson: “In English, according to Lakoff and Johnson (1980: 36) metonymy... has primarily a referential function, that is, it allows us to use one entity to stand for another… [It] also serves the function of providing understanding”. To Jacobson (as cited in Lodge 1988:57) we have metonymy when “an attribute, or cause or effect of a thing signifies the thing”. He notes that in Arabic الكناية [al-kināya] ‘metonymy’ is frequently used for insinuation. It is defined in the Arabic eloquence as an utterance by which a meaning different than the real [differential] meaning is intended, with the possible standing of the original meaning where there is no evidence to obstruct this possibility. Example:  عورتهم [ʻauratuhum] ‘their fault’, literally ‘their genitalia’ [6, P. 130].

M. Brdar describes metonymy as a figure of thought rather than merely a figure of speech figure [5, P.29]. He compares metonymy with metaphor and shows that within the cognitive linguistic structure, metaphor and metonymy are in contrast with each other for three different aspects. Although some linguists [12], [15] believe that the boundaries between these two figures are unclear. Firstly, metonymy is based on intimacy and relevance; however, metaphor is based on similarity. Secondly, they are different in conceptual domains, and thirdly, metaphor and metonymy differ from each other in the direction of conceptual mappings. [5, P.32-33].

According to U.Eco, rhetorical rules in the language reflect "hypercodification" [7, P.188]. The sign theory should also consider hypercodification and change of language. Rhetoric has been involved in this work so far [7, P.344]. Metonymy represents a more clear form of hypercoding. In a substitute based on syntagmatic relations one of the axis member can replace the other.  Example:  “İl Presidente degli Stati Uniti abita alla Casa Bianca” -  "The President of the United States lives in the White House". In this sentence we may use "White House" instead of "US President". However, the role of encyclopedic knowledge is also important here.That is, it is important to be aware of the facts or information received in a culture and to understand the semiotic behavior of expression. It should be noted that the semiotic capacity determines the distinguishing features of sememes. The metaphor is sememic similarity, and metonymy is sememic dependency [7, P.349]. A.Henry writes:

 In un quartiere dove noi abbiamo abitato erano installate, in quasi tutti i giardini, delle corde per asciugare i panni, montate su due carrucole. Queste ultime, naturalmente, erano arrugginite, e durante la manovra stridevano. Siccome la biancheria era stesa soprattutto nei giorni di sole, la frase le carrucole cigolano aveva finito per significare, nel lessico familiare, ‘fa bel tempo’. Il segno per la cosa significata, direbbe la Retorica: ma la corrispondente traduzione linguistica non è una parola, bensí una frase. Se ne deduce quindi che l’essenza del fenomeno non sta nel risultato lessicale, ma nella stessa intuizione metonimica, vale a dire nell’operazione mentale [11, P.17-18].

“In the neighborhood where we lived, the ropes that mounted on two pulleys for drying clothes were installed in almost all the gardens. After a while the pulleys, of course, were rusted, and during the maneuver they screamed. Since the clothes were laid out especially on sunny days, the phrase "the pulleys squeak"  had come to mean in colloquial lexicon, "the weather is good". The sign for the thing signified, rhetoric would say: but the corresponding linguistic translation is not a word, but a sentence. It can therefore be deduced that the essence of the phenomenon lies not in the lexical result, but in the same metonymic intuition, that is to say in the mental operation”.

A. Henry went on to distinguish between  metonymy and symbolic nexus. The first has a linguistic nature, and second has  the psychological nature. He notes that the metonymy and symbolic nexus are two different operations. Any metonymic sign can be attributed to symbolism. The point is that the mind itself in a more or less free way confers a  value of symbol  to the another metonymic marker, but it refers in the metonymic connection  to the "real" relationship between two objects. Of course, both metonymy and synecdoche may at some stage become a symbolic link. For example, the marker of sailing can be understood as  navigation. The main thing is to have a conceptual connection here [11, P. 25].

Conclusion

The analysis of various sources described above can allow making some conclusions. In classical rhetoric speech figures are divided up schemas and tropes. The schemas mainly cover formal patterns, and tropes are lexical or semantic deviations. Metonymy is a prototypical trope. It is impossible to put up barrier between metonymy and other figures of thougt (rhetoric figures). In my opinion, it is necessery to approach metonymy from different perspectives. We must keep in mind that metonymy is also a research object of cognitive linguistics and semiotics. It is a universal and common phenomenon. Metonymy emerges in all language levels. Therefore, the semio-cognitive approach to metonymy allows to comprehend the essence of this term and opens up new perspectives in cognitive linguistics.